Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 23 October 1981:
Vol. 214. no. 4519, pp. 437 - 438
DOI: 10.1126/science.214.4519.437
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Mechanism of Single-Layer Graphite Oxidation: Evaluation by Electron Microscopy

RALPH T. YANG 1 and CHOP WONG 1

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo, Amherst 14260

Etch-decoration reveals that the rate of removal of carbon atoms exposed at monolayer steps on graphite surfaces depends on the population density of these edge atoms (the rate is higher at a low-density surface) and that carbon removal continues for a prolonged period after the oxygen supply in the gas phase has been shut off. The edge carbons are removed by both oxygen from the gas phase and oxygen in the adsorbed oxides which migrate from the neighboring basal carbon atoms.

Submitted on March 20, 1981
Revised on July 15, 1981

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)